Particularly with regard to humans migrating out of Africa and perhaps transporting useful plants with them which then establish elsewhere along early routes. It seems that there is a global similarity between plants at the Family and Genus level which are associated closely with archaeological sites world-wide. Could this be due to anthropogenic transport, not necessarily with intent? For instance, seeds eaten in food remaining within the gut, or carried as food (possibly dried), and deposited at a new site where the germinated plant establishes, grows, then is moved along further after becoming productive much later?
there is an interesting paper I read recently which discussed strawberry plants and the fact that they are only common between andorra / pyrennees / basque region and Ireland and therefore could only have been transported - the question then becomes how - ill try find the link and post
The Polynesians deliberately took crop plants with them and dispersed these across the islands of the Pacific Ocean. An article on this can be found here: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/29/11/1226.full.pdf. This was a very deliberate act and quite late in human migration history. This was probably not unique in human history and did happened on other continents much earlier, probably as early as the advent of agriculture, if not earlier.
If you are looking for non-agricultural societies consider aboriginal communities in Australia. They had an early (40 -50,000 years ago) impact on Australia's vegetation. Not only through the use of fire but also favouring and probably dispersing useful plants and tubers. See for example: Plants, Sites and Domiculture: Aboriginal Influence upon Plant Communities in Cape York Peninsula
R. A. Hynes and A. K. Chase
Thanks Jan and Paul. I am very interested in the answers I have got so far as it confirms my feeling (experience) that Southern Africa is not often referred to in global discussions on these sort of topics. Apart from the very well known and much cited Namibian and Botswanan research of Lee and Devore and the Leakey research in East Africa, there is little written about the early Southern African hunter-gatherers and their possible impact on and migration with plants. The Australian and Polynesian examples you give certainly do make a likely case for similar scenarios much earlier in southern Africa, so those are useful, thanks.
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